September 22nd, 2015 – Maps, black and white photographs, clippings, travel notes, and samples make up the exhibition “Desert – The Last Remaining Snow” by Francesca Consigli and William Santoleri, hosted at the Italian Cultural Institute in Prague from September 24 to October 8. Curated by Chiara Serri, the exhibition will be inaugurated on Thursday at 5pm. The project stems from a journey across the Majella plateau, in the heart of the Apennines, in a desert made of stone at more than 2,500 meters of altitude, searching for the last summer snow. The search was repeatedly documented and collected in an exhibition that includes documentary materials, installations and paintings made by the authors. The work – as stated in a statement by the Italian Cultural Institute in Prague – was developed inside PineCube, a place for meditation made in wood, iron and glass suspended between the branches of a pine tree in the Majella park. The exhibition includes a first section in the Sala Capitolare of the Institute, with videos, artifacts and documents; and a second in the Baroque chapel, with a dozen of mixed media works distributed in side niches. Inspired by a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke (“Spaziergang”, 1924), the two artists wanted to expose in Prague their new project, with the intention to complete the work with another walk in the Giants’ mountains in the Czech Republic, so as to create a bond between Majella and Krkonoše. As written by the curator, “from the paintings by Francesca Consigli gradually emerge the memories of the Majella plateau, in the form of snow residues, contour lines, engraved signs in the depths of the stones. No photographic mimesis, no descriptive intent, just the desire to reproduce the sensation of a desert of sand and wind.” The work by William Santoleri, instead, “is born from an apparently simple photograph, with patches of snow and rocky terrain. From pencil sketches to the application of color, through a process that brings the work to the limits of abstraction. Santoleri also realized for this exhibit some sheets, freer in composition, where color is given by oxidation, and snow from scraps of paper.” (PO / red)
